Guild Wars 2

lordkrall.7241:

I don’t think that is the sort of timing he talks about. But rather the fact that the sandstorm always happened after X minutes and always ended after X minutes.

Generally, the type of timing that disappoints me is events set to timers that will cause them to end after a certain amount of time. Rather than having some tangible objective, you are instead fighting a clock. Running them on a schedule is also disappointing as it provides a less “organic” experience for the world. Instead of players and NPCs undertaking activities that generate the conditions for subsequent events to occur, the world operates on a schedule. The events at release were more like the latter, and the events as of late have been stale and uninspiring for me.

Ayrilana.1396:

After you win or fail, you use claim to the forts and have to wait 5 minutes to start over again.

So, no matter what you do same result?

The dry top events were slightly better as there were more variety in the events. In here, they’re all the same.

More variety, but I hated how they were all essentially timed events with the vast majority being kill the thing before time runs out.

I haven’t been able to jump in game, but how are the new events compared to previous releases?

Are they just the same old events on a timer and player involvement really doesn’t matter, or are they a back and forth struggle between opposing forces where player and NPC action affect the sate of the world? Are they on a predictable looping pattern or are there multiple avenues to change the fate of the zone?

saventis.1485:

what did you do/plan to do in the 2 months we wernt getting any updates?

There will probably be a Halloween update, but I just plan on playing other games. October has a lot of good game releases and I’m still wading through Divinity Original Sin. To tell you the truth I can’t play GW 2 like I did before, it just bores me with its grind and insistence on making the open world a series of random events popping up, rather than making them have any exciting effects on the world. When they said they were adding a new zone I was hoping the events there would tell better stories and have interesting cause and effect mechanics, but no they are mostly run on timers and outcome doesn’t affect the world all to much (just the rewards).

just curious as to why we have so many breaks.

One of the major criticisms of Season 1 of the Living story is it was fragmented and gave a piddling amount of story progression during each update. The schedule was blamed by the players and I think Arena Net realized it wasn’t helping them either. Hence, they abandoned the two-week cadence for Living World updates and now bring them in blocks so they can better polish them. I still feel like they need more polish, more content updates, and more focus on the vast array of unfinished stories ¹ around the world; but they have improved with this schedule.

¹ – Charr-Human treaty for one. It’d be nice if they updated and expanded on the event chains all around the world that have these stories that should have progressed by now.

Well you see, they are just making their policy about lore consistent across the board. Nothing from out of game sources is lore, and now nothing in game is lore. Expect full deletion of the personal story by next feature patch.

felessan.9587:

As discussed, rewards are the driving factor in replayability.

I’ve played many multipayer games over and over again without being doled out trinkets or rewards. I’ve replayed several RPGs multiple times through without the incentive of reward. I agree most people replaying GW 2 are doing so because of rewards, but that’s because that’s all it offers in PVE. If the activities were fun and engaging then rewards should only be there to supplement, not be the reason for playing. If Arena Net has to keep people doing activities with loot it suggests to me the activities really aren’t that fun, challenging, or engaging. It is no longer a virtual world they are offering, but a slot machine that gives you useless virtual goods.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

• The reward structure in Dry Top is desirable for many people. But Dry Top lacks some favorable elements from earlier open world maps such as chaining or random events. My thought here is that one does not exclude the other and in the future we could incorporate both the best of both designs.

I am so happy you noticed this. The biggest reason I never play GW2 except to catch up on living story is that the world often doesn’t present engaging content. I want to feel like the actions of me an my peers affect the outcome of the world. I don’t think you ever got this right, and have actually taken steps away from actually having a world where actions matter, ¹ but the events prior to the Living Story (yes I do mean before January of 2013) were much better at giving this feeling than those you added under the crunch schedule of the Living Story.

At the moment most events seem to be random occurrences with NPCs popping out of the ether rather than having an organic existences that leads them to have motives and purposes for the actions they take. Worse most enemy engagements are on timers and just go away regardless of player interaction. There are no consequences, and thus it feels pointless. There is no exposition for most NPC actions, thus the actions seem irrelevant and the NPCs stale.

¹ – Megaservers really put the nail in the coffin on this because we have no guarantee of returning to zones we were actively helping. Effects bleeding over into neighboring zones based on our actions also had much promise for giving “epic” consequences to actions, but it is no longer achievable due to megaservers. Other things added that hinder this are guilds starting mega-bosses with a button press rather than having events organically arise due to the actions of players in the zones.

I like this idea. Too many MMOs offer large world, but the only way to interact with them is through violent activity. Can we have dynamic events that involve diplomacy, for example; instead of bring our weapons out. Events that require playing strategic mini-games, or sleuthing out a criminal for authorities to arrest.

I’m not opposed to combat, but games sometimes lack imagination when it comes to giving players tools with which to interact inside their virtual worlds and default to violence… maybe because it’s easier to design.

The new season has increased the amount of content delivered in the patches and the amount of story telling, but still struggles to make it feel like the world is changing due to our actions. Outside of the improvements they made to existing events that were already pretty good, the new events added are just enemies randomly popping up and going away on a timer or persisting until completed. No matter what we do as players the world operates on a schedule and have no control over the fate of the zones as a result. Most NPCs don’t react to the new changes, but still go on their business as if nothing is going on around them.

I’d like the scheduled events to go away and more events be added that tell little stories that have player choice affecting how the zone operates should the event go one way or the other. At the moment the game just brings me back long enough to see the new story and then vacate, and even that activity is becoming low on my priority list as better games come out that tell better tales where my actions as a player matter to the world.

Konig where has it been established that the Avatar is ethereal, and not just a formed Sylvari body?

I think the dialogue indicates this, but alternative meanings can be read into it.

“I am not as I appear to you. This small body is but a manifestation I use to put visitors at ease. "

“Body” usually entails corporeal properties, but I could see it going the other way. “Manifestation” usually entails abstractness, but I could also see it going the other way… though “fabrication” would be a better term.

“Avatar” can go either way, and has throughout fiction. See “The Doctor” from Star Trek: Voyager as an incorporeal example, or EDI from Mass Effect 3 as an example of a corporeal avatar.

Either way it is odd to rush to an avatar.

Thalador.4218:

Funny thing is that they keep killing — both literally and figuratively — the world they so much want to bring to life.

I can’t tell you how depressed I am by the open world content in this release. It’s all basically, event pops up in this location on schedule and ends on a schedule. Do kitten or don’t, it doesn’t matter because all actions are meaningless when the world always operates the same regardless of outcome. There may be one or two events that chain onto an additional step depending on success, and they aren’t exactly telling meaningful tales or impacting the world.

hedix.1986:

I haven’t done Dwayna since a day or so after the “feature patch”. Every time I went to Orr since, all of the Temple events were done and there wasn’t much left to do.

I actually like this. It’s the player base taking control over a territory and keeping it. What sucks about it, for me; is the enemies have no recourse just to attempt the same futile events that spawn out of the ether. It’d be nice if as players succeeded the enemies came back with different strategies and tactics. After the players claim territory enemies shouldn’t just attack again from the same locations, but start multiple events for building their forces, that players can further interrupt, eventually driving enemies from the map. After doing so, the enemies are forced to bring out their bigger forces to regain a foothold on the map. If they fail, they get stronger the next time until they succeed in regaining their foothold, which allows the to rebuild their territory on map, etc.

The only problem with this is megaservers kitten up any attempt at having persistent effects on the world, or effects that bleed over to other zones (which had all sorts of wonderful possibilities for having our actions or inaction affect the world). As such, should you leave the zone you will end up coming back to a different copy, which is in a completely different state. Worse is if you leave a zone as the last player and the infrastructure erases that copy as it is no longer needed.

Edit: Guild Wars 2 needs to think of inspiring ways of dividing its player base, improving its AI and dynamic events, and having players actions matter to the world if it is going to compete with its MMO successors that take their original ideas and run with them rather than squandering these ideas by making players actions immaterial to the functioning of the world. Boss timers definitely need to go to partially undo the damage that was done with this “feature” patch.

Oogabooga.9138:

I’m getting ridiculous lag since the megaserver that I’ve not experienced before, well since beta anyway. I don’t lose fps, just the ability to control my character at all for 4-5 seconds at a time.

I wonder if this new Blob Champion has anything to do with it?

These images should really be put up on MMO websites as indicative of actual gameplay. If I saw that before buying GW 2, I never would have opted in based on their manifesto nonsense.

Blude.6812:

The bosses aren’t the problem, the megazergserver is.

It can be both.

IndigoSundown.5419:

As to mega-servers — those are about appearances. GW2 was always supposed to be about large groups of players doing content in the persistent world. Empty zones kill MMO’s.

However, there isn’t a persistent world any longer. Only worlds that exist temporarily and then disappear once people leave them. If anything, Guild Wars 2 since the start of the “Living” World has always been about moving players in concert from one activity to the next using carrots like achievements and loot so that they are all together and don’t experience empty zones as there is no longer anything to gain there… unless you liked that sort of thing, which few players seemed to. I really don’t think they care if activities leave their marks on a persistent world any longer given the boss schedules and how the megaservers function.

“As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

GW 2 Manifesto

Hm, everyone doing the same thing… check. Bosses that spawn or go away on a schedule regardless of player or NPC action… check. So much for a living world.

R.I.P. Guild Wars 2 Manifesto.

anzenketh.3759:

The reason why in most cases a player or group of individuals can not have a long lasting effect on the open world is for the simple reason being that other players need to participate in the same content by design.

I disagree with your assumption that ALL players need to participate in the same content. Arena Net doesn’t even agree with this seeing as they created the Living Story.

I can eat an egg and you can no longer eat that same egg. The pleasure in sharing human experience is predicated on the fact that we don’t share the same experiences precisely. That said, despite eating an egg, there are still many eggs for you to eat and have a very similar, yet uniquely different, experience than I had.

Using an in game example, even though me and my friends have pushed the centaurs back to their stronghold, doesn’t mean you and your friends cannot enjoy continuing our efforts. Yes, you won’t get to see them out in the fields, presently; but if the centaurs gather enough resources, scry new combat techniques, make assassination attempts on unsuspecting players; well they might just win the day and push back into the fields again. If we as the players do so well as to push them off the map, well there won’t be centaurs for a while, but eventually we as players will leave for other activities and they can regain their foothold.

Perhaps some devoted groups that can keep the centaurs at bay for ever. Seems awfully boring, but more power to them, they really want to protect Kryta. Though, there are certainly ways to make it so that failure by the player base is inevitable by continually increasing the difficulty of centaur “breakout” events the more a persisting world succeeds… if we had persisting worlds

There are some examples where dynamic events can deliver such back and forth conflicts where there are persistent outcomes to our actions that can be reversed by the enemy NPCs or or own actions. Most of these eventually reset based on some timer that starts a retake event, and I don’t expect this to go away. However, the more intricate the chain of events is and NPC behavior becomes, the more this is hidden and the less it needs to be relied upon. Such complicated events that persist, yet are reversible, would be possible if Arena Net wasn’t gung-ho on eliminating a persistent world and dictating a schedule to us.

anzenketh.3759:

@SirMoogie
Due to a MMO had many players in it you can not have a long lasting effect to the world.

Why not? Keep in mind, I didn’t say long lasting. I said actions that matter to the world. Effects need not be “permanent” or even lasting over multiple days (though that would be nice for somethings). What I’m looking for is a world that responds and acts like actions from players and NPCs matter, and are not driven by timers or “hard resets” to event chains. Of course to have that you have to actually have a world to begin with and not a series of instances that are constantly in a state of creation/removal.

anzenketh.3759:

Why do you say that? What would you do to improve the system (no removing MegaServers is not a option).

In the manifesto Ree states, “As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Colin continues, “You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.”

And later concludes, “Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.”

Dynamic events as a tool can generate this feel of actions mattering to the world… when player action actually maters to their outcome. With the new scheduled bosses our actions no longer matter to the world. The bosses will still act as they always have and still retreat, regardless of our victory or not. This isn’t to say that dynamic events before this patch were extraordinary, as many; like Tequatl; largely operated the same regardless of player participation.

My favorite example of an event chain done right is Ogre Wars. It’s an event that will not occur unless players actually take the time to start it by helping the Charr or Humans (could be better if both had to be done to activate it). After doing so it procedes through several steps as the Charr and Human gain more and more territory until they get to the boss of the event. Unfortunately, the follow up events aren’t that great, as the Ogres just seem to take back some of the territory regardless of player action. Nonetheless, it’s miles above Tequatl in terms of player driven effects on the world. The events leading up to defeating Ulgoth the Modniir used to be another great example of player generated effects on the world… this is no longer the case due to the boss schedule.

The megaserver worsens the situation as there can no longer be persisting effects on the world as there are no longer worlds that stick around for you as the player to actually have any sort of lasting effect on. The Bloodtide Coast you entered 30 minutes ago is likely not to be the same one you enter again, thus any effects you may have had on the zone are quickly erased. Even if that zone still persists you have no means of reliably entering it again. There also can no longer be cross-zone effects, which had all sorts of interesting avenues Arena Net could have explored and were suggested in the Living World CDI.

I have no illusions that megaservers are going away, and I have no solutions to the problems that trouble me. This patch has soured me to the game and the direction its going. I have no intentions of logging in, short of treating it as a single player game that delivers new smatterings of lore occasionally. I’m eagerly watching Everquest Next as they are promising a world that actually responds to player action and doesn’t operate on schedules.

Edit: Devouring the Brand is another excellent event chain… though again it just seems to reset itself without player or NPC involvement. Of course, even if it did have a back and forth feel to it, like Ulgoth used to, any effects we had on the zone would be short lived as soon as we left it and tried entering again.

The manifesto was decimated long ago when they started introducing Living story achievements, which are essentially quest steps that direct you where to go, along with numerous events that had no impact on the world (such as Scarlet’s Invasions). They plunged a stake through its heart with the introduction of boss schedules and megaservers. Now the world really doesn’t care if you are there or not, it operates the same regardless of your actions.

Urxx.6840:

The sweet spot would probably be to have both. I think the mistake here was to found the whole game on DE, and leave storytelling only in the personal story.

They did have both. Personal story and now Living Story tells more epic tales. The dynamic events, when done well; also tell tales, but they tell tales of overall conflict in an area that can be seen as a back and forth between two warring forces. When dynamic events work is when it makes sense for there to be an ebb and flow between forces. There are all sorts of ways to spice this up so that is isn’t constantly the same types of activities. For example, I proposed the following during the first CDI:

I consider dynamic events the bread and butter of your game. They tell short or multi-branching tales where player actions can help determine the outcome. They aren’t always challenging, many don’t have any impact on the world at all, and when they do this impact is usually short lived; but they can be the perfect vehicle for allowing player actions to have meaning in the world. Going forward before you introduce new dynamic events, whether it be huge invasion type content or small events like hunting an arctodus so Edmund can get a new rug; I think the content creators should ask themselves:

• Does this event and surrounding environment give enough story context for why the player is performing the activity?
• During the event, should a player arrive late; is there spoken or text dialogue that can catch a player up?
• Are the NPCs acting appropriate to the context of the tale you are telling with the dynamic event?
• Can the NPCs make meaningful impact on the world around them should players succeed/fail at the task at hand?
• Does the impact have lasting effects on the surrounding area or the zone at large so that the players feel like they did something meaningful?
• Can those effects be changed back to the previous state by player and NPC actions or are they on a timer? If the latter, try to go for the former.

Presently many of the dynamic events, especially those added in the Living Story content, fail to make the players feel like they’ve made meaningful changes on the world. Whether it be the epic dragon fights or smaller centaur incursions, the events repeat too frequently and many times without cause, removing the immersion and reminding players their actions don’t matter. I know it would upset the loot/achievement/farming motivated players, but I’d prefer a more organic world where player and NPC actions matter, as opposed to one where things run on predictable schedules so that people aren’t denied access to their loot pinatas. To make the world feel more organic NPC actions and reactions need to be logical and whenever possible, off timers. If we succeed in winning an outpost from the centaurs, it should open up new events to fortify that outpost from the centaurs. Making it harder for them to take it back. In response the centaurs will have their own “events”, where they must gather resources to build up their attack, descry new combat techniques or spells, scout out the player controlled encampments for weaknesses in the defenses, perform guerrilla attacks on bases elsewhere, and perform assassinations on key players that wander outside the safety of the encampments. Players may interrupt these centaur “events” to make their reclamation of the fortress harder still. To ensure the centaurs aren’t always pushed from the maps, you can add centaur type “break out events”, where the centaurs get a powerful boss to rally to their aid occasionally. This type of dynamic scaling need not be on a timer either, but can be based on how many successes the players of that world have been against the centaur incursions. The idea here being that a warlord doesn’t enter the fray unless necessary. The more event choices we as the players have to help shape the ebb and flow of the Living Story content or any content the better.

Similar changes can be made to the world boss events. Tequatl shouldn’t be entering the fray unless the players are doing really well at controlling Sparkfly Fen. After he is defeated players should have to perform events necessary for combating his eventual return. If Tequatl wins, he should do more than corrupt the shore and then flee. He should stick around aiding his minions in capturing objectives around them map in an invasion style event. If the players fight back this invasions to the shores again, they get another crack at Tequatl. Again, NPCs need behave in context with the tale you are trying to tell.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Living-World/page/18#post3129254

phys.7689:

world permanence is gone, this is why they had to kill the boss interactions in ORR, which is kind of sad, because although they didnt use it much, that type of trigger would have been an interesting design tool going forward.

And with it one of the major selling points that brought me to the game (the other being a connection to the lore from GW1). With it gone I will have to turn to the only other MMO I am aware of that is promising a game that focuses on open world events that give players a feeling that their actions matter in shaping the world, EQ Next.

Somewhere along the line MMOs went from offering interesting open worlds to explore and forge communities that help the world grow to offering “theme park” content that tells you what you should be doing and when. GW 2 really had systems in place that could have offered a different experience, but apparently they’ve decided to abandon those tools for a Living World release schedule that tells you what you should be doing and now a megaserver structure with schedule that says you have to be somewhere at a specific time or you’ll never see these events. So much potential for this game squandered.

Viking Jorun.5413:

The Megaserver concept for me thinking, would this be a viable way to instance certain zones

Zones are already instances. Technically speaking anytime an MMO introduces multiple copies of a world they are instancing the world as there is no longer one copy. So, yes, even having servers means a world is instanced. GW 2 zones have a maximum cap that fluctuates by map, but averages around 150 players. After that cap is hit a new zone is created called an overflow zone (if one doesn’t exist already). Players that enter maps that have reached the cap go to the next available overflow. This concept is not changing with the megaservers, as overflows will still be created, they just won’t be called overflows.

Other MMOs don’t have instanced zones, but instead use other techniques to control population (such as more servers and world queues). Since those MMOs tend to have an end-game focused on instanced dungeons that eventually becomes less of a problem as most of the population isn’t in the open world, but hidden away in dungeons. GW 2 chose to go with instanced zones to eliminate queuing in the open world.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

Wanting to do specific content and a living dynamic open world are contradictory concepts. A living dynamic open world moves on its own time with its own goals and purposes. Wanting to do specific content is the defining trait of instanced content.

Exactly. Which is why I dislike instancing. I want an MMO with a dynamic open world that responds to player actions, not runs on defined schedules. I’m disappointed with the change because one of the major selling points of the game was that our actions would matter, and while I never thought the game realized its full potential it had with dynamic events, I thought it could eventually build into becoming that type of game. However, this latest move is pushing that goal further away, and I can only hope another MMO takes the ideas GW 2 wanted and doesn’t cave to the pressure of players who wish to have the same instanced content we find in most mainstream MMOs.

The first CDI on the Living World had many players feeling that Guild Wars 2 needs more meaningful events that impact the world. Megaservers while solving one problem seem to make the task of having a more meaningful play experience impossible as the dynamic events will be constantly resetting to their default states as maps are created and removed. The Temples of Orr were the closest thing you had to world impacting effects, as player actions a zone away actually affected how one corner of the world operated. However, that isn’t the case any longer. It would seem any significant changes to the world will have to be zone specific, and even then, only as long lasting as the map exists. Going forward are there any plans to make players actions matter, or are we just going to have a world that operates on schedules rather than the result of player choice/action? Are more events just going to be enemy forces that run away, even though they are winning, because they have to adhere to a schedule? Changes like these make the world feel less alive, not more so.

I’m all for players being able to make attempts on World Bosses at their leisure, but a better system would not have this being some guild unlock that is used in the map; but rather done through player actions in game. For example, Tequatl could have a dynamic event invasion chain where if he succeeds, he retakes the shores then slowly spawns more events across the map taking it over. Players that organize to retake the zone get to fight Tequatl. Some objectives to get Tequatl to land and fight them could include retaking the invaded outposts and reconstructing the megalaser. If they lose, Tequatl takes the beach again. Players can then keep trying to retake the beach as many times as they like. This system is much like the Temple of Balthazar, one of my favorite events. We as players, not some arbitrary timer, largely dictate how this meta-event runs and how many attempts at it we can make.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Yes, please. Do report anything you think is a bug. You can do so via the Game Bugs forum: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs .
Or, you can report them in-game from the Support Menu. Thanks!

Angel this is not a bug. Talk to Bobby

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

One thing, however: my level 52 asura character who has just completed the Battle of Claw Island was referred to as Commander by Laranthir who also referenced her battle with Zhaitan, which has not happened. Should I report this as a bug?

This isn’t a bug. All Living Story is post-Zhaitan. When you do your perosnal story you are viewing past events:

BobbyStein.2315:

DragoTheWise.7256:

I hope you folks are seriously not considering the LS is happening at the same time as the Personal Story, and this is just a slip up on the post. I also would hope that everyone on the team can get this stuff straight so that this confusion doesn’t happen.

What Regina means is that for players who are currently going through their Personal Story, the LW timeline will seem to be happening at the same time. Technically, they happen at different times in Tyrian history. Personal Story predates the current Living World season by approximately one year.

So when you’re playing your Personal Story and are in an instance with Rytlock, etc. the assumption is that this is happening “in the past” whereas LW events are happening now.

Our hope is to provide better distinction of these timelines within the game, but that would come with the release of a planned feature that we’re not ready to discuss in depth just yet.

Ox Lee.7319:

Actually, it was stated by Mike Zadorojny that the events of the Living Story take place one year after the Personnal Story :

It was, then there was some confusing comments that seemed to make it less certain, then Bobby Stein corrected that confusion. What is known is that they were deliberately trying to make it so that no matter where you were in the personal story it wouldn’t be obvious to you that you were missing something. That from your perspective the world always made sense.

1) Dynamic event overhaul. Ensure that they impact the world more substantially, make it feel like your actions were important to “controlling” how Tyria functions, and impact the player base in a way that makes them want to do them.
2) Larger, higher quality content releases
3) More character progression options, such as advanced professions

bullyrook.2165:

I haven’t checked out the epilogue yet, but I heard something about Jory showing a dark side when it comes to Sylvari. Any truth to the rumor?

I didn’t pick up on that. If you talk to some NPCs it is suggested that fear of sylvari is on the rise due to Scarlet, but none of the biconics seem to exhibit it. Perhaps if you are sylvari you get special dialogue?

If so, I really don’t hope they go with yet another tragic homosexual romance.

They do use the tragic romance plot a lot in game, mostly with non-iconics. We do have Caithe and Faolain, but they were never depicted together in game for us to get behind their romance. It wouldn’t hurt to do it with the iconic characters since , AFAIK, there hasn’t been a tragic relationship with the iconics.

I know this is a more PvP focused thread on communication, but some guild tools could help across all areas of gameplay. I multi-guild because guilds often have different purposes (such as PvE, WvW, and PvP). It’d be nice if I could have separate chat tabs for each guild instead of having to represent to hear what members of those guilds have to say. In game guild calendars would also help schedule and organize events; whether they be private PvP tournaments, WvW events, or dungeon night.

You’ve done a great job in this thread Queen! Thanks for keeping your cool.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There is no such thing as a purpose.

To expound on this point. Purpose is a relationship between an entity with desires and something else. If there is no entity with a desire about the thing in question the thing cannot have a purpose to fulfill. To suggest humans, sex, genetics, etc. have purposes independent from human desires for those things is to suggest that the universe (or something greater) has a mind with desires about those things. Many people may personally believe that, but I see no reason to grant that assumption. Even if the universe had a mind behind it, I can’t even fathom how you’d begin to reliably infer its desires; and even if you could, why would you want to help it fulfill its desires?

I wouldn’t stop them completely, or tone them down in the war zone, but it does break immersion to see an NPC you’re talking to just sit their idly while being bombarded by a laser.

Are you saying characters in the game world should replicate population demographics in the real world and that the choice of character gender matters?

LadyZaner.9137:

I gave my back plate to a lower level character, so I can’t even get to Scarlet on my lvl80 without the Knights.

The teleporter has been reported to check the achievement not that you have the back piece on your character. If you made the back piece, equipped it, and got the achievement for doing so it should let you in. I haven’t tried it on my alts, but I did not have it equipped when I entered.

Taygus.4571:

"
Would farmers go to the servers that are failing, knowing it would get easier?

I’m not sure farmer behavior can be predicted easily. If I were loot motivated and cared nothing for my own server’s success I would probably go to where I could get the best loot without upsetting the success of the server that currently has the best loot (because they’ve been the most successful and thus have a harder, but more rewarding encounter).

What about overflow servers. They’re a mix of all, so they cant really be adjusted like that.

Average success/failures across all servers to generate an approximate difficulty.

Zaxares.5419:

There are several other threads discussing this, and the suspicion that I and many others have is that the Knights are scaled up to require 50 players to beat by default.

They don’t require 50. Did them yesterday with group compositions that had around 35 each. There isn’t going to be an exact number for everyone as gear choices add a bit of luck to this. Condition players being an obvious source of damage issues. For example, I’ve just been switching my condition mesmer’s major traits around and utility skills to compensate, also running with more condition removal than normal.

I think it’s no more difficult than the marionette, but does require people to show up and organize for it; which is a problem for several reasons:

- There are competing events going on at the same time
- People have suffered a string of losses and give up
- Waning interest as people complete the meta
- Some players have anti-log out scripts going to farm the events. Not many, but in a fight where these players increase the difficulty by being present it just adds to the previous problems.

Some suggestions to fix the situation:

- Have the fight scale down further. It doesn’t require 50 per knight as others are claiming (maybe for the achievement) as I’ve done it with groups as small as 35. Though group composition probably makes this vary substantially.
- Decrease the time it spends invulnerable to conditions or introduce a mechanic that condition players can work on to remove the shield early. As it is now many condition players are avoiding doing damage or doing their small amounts of direct damage with lots of condition removal utilities/traits.
- Add a report function for inactive players

As for player interest, I generally don’t like carrots and prefer letting people do what they find fun. As such just adjusting the scaling would allow those of us who find it fun to do the event without needing roughly 90-120 interested people.

In general, other popular MMOs have realized it’s hard to organize even 40 people to do raid content (it can be like herding cats) and only fraction of the player base was enjoying the content they were creating. Open world raid content should be doable by small groups and scale appropriately. Even Tequatl could be reworked to require 20 people. Instead of having six turrets, have a number of turrets that can be built/repaired based on scaling of the encounter. Have Tequatl build stacks based on scaling. Have his health and timer adjust based on scaling. Adjust rewards for smaller groups as it is easier to organize smaller groups than larger groups. As a bonus, keep track of sever success at the world events and make them easier for servers that fail more and harder for servers that succeed more. Scale awards based on difficulty. This way no server is ever in a state where they consistently fail at Tequatl, the Wurms, or the Living Story events; and there is incentive to rerun encounters and improve your skills on them. Early on most servers seem to muster the numbers, but after a string of failures it becomes difficult to get people interested in the encounters again.

VitisVinifera.2834:

It looks like ANet is in above their heads and need to focus on higher quality content even if that means less frequent content. I hope during this break they come to terms with the fact that quality has been on a steady decline as these living world updates have progressed.

I don’t think it is so simple. Quality in some areas has taken a hit recently and quality in other areas is improving. Story presentation and variety in open world encounters has improved. The Battle for Lion’s Arch and Escape from Lion’s Arch both added some varied content that I think was better than Queen’s Jubilee and Secret of Southsun because it provided multiple objectives and split the zerg up a bit. I also liked the Tower of Nightmares patch, it was an interesting take on an open world dungeon and I’d like to see more like it in the future.

The progress halting bugs as of late though are indicative of QA issues Every patch has bugs, but some of these are particularly pernicious. Changing the encounter mid-week was a poor decision as well as it trained people on the “wrong” way of doing the event and just made it a chaotic situation to recover from. I do like the new Assault Knights, but think they can be too punitive for smaller servers or overflows. They don’t require fifty per knight, but they also don’t scale down enough so that ten people can do one of them.

By making content that isn’t rewarding, even for attempts at it, and that requires a full nearly full map of players (like the wurms and the knights) they are ensuring it goes unused by the vast majority of the player base as they will return to the guaranteed rewards that come from easier world bosses or champion farm chains. I do enjoy that they are making challenging encounters that make us think and learn new skills, but I just can’t seem to find the numbers at the encounters to get them done. The Wurms and Tequatl are never done successfully on my server, despite some players showing up and wanting to learn them. It would be nice if these encounters scaled down to more manageable numbers (like thirty players) or scaled in difficulty based on server success (meaning failing an encounter means it becomes easier the next time around, succeeding means it becomes harder). Obviously, scale the rewards for easier versions of the fights.

Bumping so we can get more people at our events! if on FA check out: http://www.fort-aspenwood.com/index.php?/calendar/ for events.

Just for clarification on Charr. We don’t say there are no gods, we says “Charr need no gods.” Basically, we believe the six exist(ed), but that they were forces to overthrow, not worship.

We did quite well organizing on FA at the 8pm EST event, not sure how the 9PM went. People just need to learn two knew things. There is limit to the buffs the encounter will provide (indicated in the right hand event description how many synergizes are left), and if they can’t get a buff to move to the other events. It took sometime to move people around, we started with 15 slots remaining at green and then had 0 near 75%. The most difficult part of the encounter is getting people to stay if they are at blue. I was in a 9PM overflow where the blue zerg just ran right away to green. We went from needing 17 to 0 quickly and then the event scaled drastically.

The encounter just changed so I’d give it a time. Arena Net swiped the rug out from underneath quite a few people by letting them learn the “wrong way” of doing the encounter for a few days and then changing it.

Anchoku.8142:

Arenanet could make the blue knight direct damage only, the green knight conditions only (lifting the caps), and tie red knight health to damage absorbed by players.

I’m not sure if that is a response to my question. This is an interesting proposal for a mechanic that changes up the damage meta, but without a timer players could just revive endlessly and eventually win the fight, even if it took an hour. What mechanic in your proposal makes it fail-able and not an inevitability?

DoctorOverlord.8620:

The only problem is that you needed to tell people about this useful option. It is not obvious in the game and I haven’t found a wiki page about it yet.

It might not be obvious, but for sometime now Arena Net has been giving players an instruction manual for their content through the achievement system. The achievements are basically a limited guide to finding this. Go to the cliffs and talk to the NPC that explains portal. There is even an achievement for using the portal with the backpiece. A lot of players like to collect every achievement point, so this is effective for instructing them.

This is also why they have been introducing harder to achieve achievements. It keeps the activity populated longer. Shh, don’t tell them or they might leave their Skinner’s Box.

Azreell.1568:

Then they design new content with nothing more then one huge glorified DPS check.

It’s not just a DPS check, but a DPS plus skill check. How would you change the encounter to still allow it to be challenging and failable, but have no timer?

Justin.7163:

Yup, same problem here. I just wanna defeat Scarlet already!

If all you want to do is get the ending and kill scarlet there is a backdoor entrance on the Diverse Ledges. You need to build the back piece up fine quality (which isn’t too costly) ¹ and that should set you on your way to killing Scarlet.

¹ – If you need help here are the permanent rich iron ore node locations

Edited to correct information.

Fenrina.2954:

While true, they have listed “build diversity” as a design goal. I’m pretty sure they done this repeatedly. The current LS design, including the new Knight patch, appears to be counterproductive to that goal.

That is a legitimate and specific claim we can discuss, thanks for raising it. I’m afraid I don’t know a lot about the Knights to know what builds it prevents. This is what I know:

- The knights have two AOE attacks that can both be dodged. One pulls you in the other just does damage, but does not hit adjacent to the knight itself.
- The knights have a melee attack spin attack (minimal damage to me in soldiers/clerics).
- The knights have a stronger melee combo with some knockdown lots of damage to me even in soldiers/clerics)
- The knights take more damage when you have a buff of their respective color on, but you take more damage from them.
- The knight apply a shield that reflects conditions when up, but I’m not sure what causes them to do this or how long it lasts. Is it random with cooldown, at a certian threshold, or some other factor I haven’t considered? Can it be removed through actions by the players?
- The knights have numerical buff on them that isn’t defiance stacks. It is usually the color of their knight and goes up to 50. What does this do?
- All knights must be defeated and their buffs collected to fight Scarlet

I can see that condition builds can feel worthless, but without knowing more about the shielding I’m not sure how bad it is. Thoughts?

aelflune.8590:

I don’t think you get it. There’s no suggestion whatsoever that this is affecting my life or causing anguish. Was I annoyed that this guy was so brazen about it? Sure. Who wouldn’t be?

I see. I misattributed a defeatest attitude to your responses, i apologize. Good luck on your next try then!

Thorquist.8126:

STOP doing achievements that rely on the other people, especially, the ones connected with TEMPORARY content. Seriously ANet, people complained already about group achievements when the Marionette was here and you’re doing it again. This is the best example of how you really listen to your player base.

I’m a player and I like them. Now what shall they do? How about a mix of achievements, some that require the skill of others and some that don’t; while still allowing everyone to complete the meta by offering dailies that can largely be done by anyone, even solo players… like with this patch.

aelflune.8590:

I’m not sure how this issue is connected to my life at all. So many armchair life gurus.

It was a suggestion that even if you don’t get the achievement to remember where this sits among your life’s priorities. I should hope it is toward the bottom, but it’s your life if you wish this to cause you mental anguish, by all means. I never claimed to be a life guru, just a person that lives that can offer you perspective.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Although they may not be so explicit about it, at every attempt there’s always someone who doesn’t listen.

Not listening is not just evidence of trolling. It can also be evidence of, well, not listening, not being capable of multi-tasking (playing attention to chat and the game), or just playing sloppily.

I just wanted to know if there is a general trend of Anet ignoring the more obvious trolls/griefers, and I also wanted to flag this as bad design. The first reply was pretty informative, but everybody else has been wasting their time.

Impossible to reasonably tell. People are more likely to report negative experiences than positive ones. I’ve never had a spider eat a cocoon in the few times I’ve done it, for example, but didn’t bother starting a post about it. No one writes a post about doing an encounter without trolls because it isn’t remarkable, it’s remarkable to have an encounter ruined by trolls. Thank you for making your report, but to be fair you could have not responded to anyone. Your responses indicated that you wished to discuss the topic further and that the first post wasn’t really enough.